An escalator is a power-driven, continuous moving stairway designed to transport passengers up and down short vertical distances. The first operational escalator was patented in 1892 and installed on Coney Island, N.Y., as an amusement ride. The device, however, was destined to serve as a serious means of transport. In the United States, there are an estimated 35,000 escalators, each serving an average of 12,000 people per year. Collectively, U.S. escalators make 105 billion passenger trips per year. The vast majority of these escalators are located within commercial, retail, and public buildings such as airports and hospitals. Not surprisingly, incidents involving escalators kill about 30 and seriously injure about 17,000 people each year in the United States, according to data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
A potentially hazardous conflict exists in environments such as airports, train stations and high traffic intensity environments due to the presence of luggage or goods of some form. In some cases, falling luggage or goods may cause a passenger to fall causing a second passenger to fall and so on, leading to a human pile at the lower landing of the escalator. In fact, at Seattle Tacoma International Airport, people with luggage fall so frequently on escalators that state inspectors have repeatedly recommended that Seattle Tacoma International Airport add signs directing people away from escalators and toward elevators. However, adding signs can cause people to stop abruptly, creating additional traffic flow problems. In other cases, luggage or goods may get caught in the machinery or wedged against the side walls of the escalator, causing people to trip and fall.
Despite the increase in accidents and the possible severity of the resulting injuries, escalator manufacturers have failed to address the need for safer designs notwithstanding the fact that many of the escalators travelled by millions of people today are decades old. Therefore, a need exists for an escalator system that facilitates the transport of goods to reduce the probability and severity of escalator-related injuries and enhance the safety of passengers.